An unyielding, heartfelt salute to those who serve our country in the military.  They keep me safe and I am grateful for their service.  Happy Veterans Day.

Despite turmoil in world affairs, and notwithstanding the prolonged stagnation to see improvement in many key economic indicators, American consumers are feeling pretty good about spending their hard earned cash.  We are a resilient bunch–short sighted at times to be sure, but able to maintain positivism all the same. The Consumer Sentiment report this morning shows the index popped just over 100.0 for only the second time since the 1990’s.  The other time was in 2004 when (relatively) low interest rates helped a similar euphoric attitude toward spending obscene amounts of money to flourish.

I believe that we can learn from history and the boom-to-bust pattern concerns me as a conservative provider of food and shelter for a wife and four hungry boys.  As an arm-chair economist though I say bring on the spending!  The holiday season is just around the corner and the men and women in uniform need a vibrant country to protect.  God bless America, whatever lies around the corner.